Free Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs

wheels.”

    “Drop me off, you can have my car.”

    I didn’t ask about the plans.

    As we ate, I described the crash scene. Ryan agreed that it sounded like drug traffickers. He, too, had no idea about the odd black residue.

    “NTSB investigator didn’t know?”

    I shook my head.

    “Larabee’l autopsy the pilot, but he’s asked me to deal with the passenger’s head.” Boyd pawed my knee. When I didn’t respond he shifted to Ryan.

    Over second, then third cups of coffee, Ryan and I discussed mutual friends, his family, things we would do when I returned toMontreal at the end of the summer. The conversation was light and frivolous, a mil ion miles from decomposing bears and a shattered Cessna. I found myself grinning for no reason.
    I wanted to stay, make ham and mustard and pickle sandwiches, watch old movies, and meander wherever the day might take us.

    But I couldn’t.

    Reaching out, I pressed my palm to Ryan’s cheek.

    “I real y am glad you’re here,” I said, smiling a smile with giggles behind it.

    “I’m glad I’m here, too,” said Ryan.

    “I have a few animal bones to finish up, but that shouldn’t take any time at al . We can leave for the beach tomorrow.” I finished my coffee, pictured the shards of skul I’d extricated from the charred fuselage. My cupcake smile drooped noticeably.

    “Wednesday at the latest.”

    Ryan gave Boyd the last strip of bacon.

    “The ocean is everlasting,” he said.

    So, it would turn out, was the parade of corpses.

8
    RYAN COULDN’T DROP ME OFF. IHAD NO CAR.

    I cal ed Katy. She arrived within minutes to taxi us downtown, cheerful about the early-morning errand.

    Yeah. Right.

    The air was hot and humid, the NPR weatherman negative on the subject of a temperature break. Ryan looked overdressed in his jeans, socks, loafers, and chopped-sleeve sweatshirt.

    At the MCME I handed Ryan my keys. Across Col ege, a kid in an extra-large Carolina Panthers jersey and crotch-hangers headed in the direction of the county services building, bouncing a basketbal to a rhythm he was hearing from his headphones.

    Though my mood was gloomy, I couldn’t help but smile. In my youth jeans had to be tight enough to cause arteriosclerosis. This kid’s drawers would accommodate a party of three.

    Watching Katy then Ryan drive off, my smile col apsed. I didn’t know where my daughter was going, or what plans Ryan shared with my estranged husband’s dog, but I wished I were heading out, too.

    Anywhere but here.

    A morgue is not a happy place. Visitors do not come for pleasant diversion.

    I know that.

    Every day greed, passion, carelessness, stupidity, personal self-loathing, encounters with evil, and plain bad luck send otherwise healthy people rol ing in with their toes up. Every day those left behind are sucker punched by the suddenness of unexpected death.

    Weekends produce a bumper crop, so Mondays are the worst.

    I know that, too.

    Stil , Monday mornings bum me out.

    When I came through the outer door, Mrs. Flowers waved a chubby hand and buzzed me from the lobby into the reception area.

    Joe Hawkins was in his cubicle speaking to a woman who looked like she might have worked at a truck-stop counter. Her clothes and face were baggy.
    She could have been forty or sixty.

    The woman listened, eyes glazed and distant, fingers working a wadded tissue. She wasn’t real y hearing Hawkins. She was getting her first glimpse of life without the person whose corpse she’d just viewed.

    I caught Hawkins’s eye, motioned him to stay at his task.

    The board showed three cases logged since yesterday. Busy Sunday forCharlotte . The pilot and passenger had checked in as MCME 438–02 and 439
    –02

    Larabee already had the pilot on the main autopsy room table. When I peeked in he was examining the burned skin through a hand-held magnifier.

    “Any word on who we have here?” I asked.

    “Nothing yet.”

    “Prints or dentals?”

    “Fingers are too far